This study was undertaken to identify the reading strategies which facilitated or inhibited the progress of adult beginning readers (ABRs). An ethnographic approach was used so that factors influencing the ABRs' acquisition of these reading strategies could be identified. Using an adapted form of the Goodman and Burke taxonomy of oral reading miscues as initial framework, the investigators described reading behaviors of ABRs who were enrolled in the beginning learning-to-read classes at two adult basic education (ABE) sites in the Richmond, Virginia, metropolitan area. Although the idiosyncratic reading behaviors of ABRs precluded generalization, it was inferred that ABRs who thought of reading as discovering meaning were aware of when they were not gaining meaning; and those who had been exposed to syllabication and could manipulate vowels and syllables tended to make progress. ABRs who thought of reading as word calling, who did not make successive attempts at words, and who had trouble reorganizing visual input tended to make less progress. Implications for instruction include the observations that (1) ABRs who thought their teachers took into account their learning styles tended to stay in programs; (2) that the way a teacher conducts a lesson provides a model for learning; and (3) that students' beliefs about reading, perhaps guided by prior schooling, also influenced ABRs' reading strategies. Further research was suggested in order to establish guidelines for ABR instruction. (KC)